


Five Letters to Kaidan

by Arke



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Earthborn (Mass Effect), Letters, M/M, MEBB 2017, Post-War, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 09:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12166659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arke/pseuds/Arke
Summary: Five events that shaped him.Five moments that made him fall deeper in love.Five letters he never sent.One time they all finally came together.





	1. The Orchard – 30.05.2189

**Author's Note:**

> **Author’s Note:**  
>  This is my first Big Bang fic, and it was such a wonderful experience!  
>  A huge thanks to [sparkly_butthole](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkly_butthole) for being a fabulous beta, for putting up with all my nonsense, and for encouraging me so much. (And for kicking my butt into signing up for the Big Bang in the first place!) :)  
>  And special thanks to adelaide_rain for creating such amazing art! It was an absolute joy to work with her! You can find the art masterpost [here](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com/post/165668619905/raininginadelaide-here-is-my-artwork-for-the)! Check her out on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelaide_rain) and [Tumblr](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com/) and show her some love! All of her work is absolutely amazing! :D
> 
> **Artist’s Note:**  
>  This has been a heck of a journey. Over the few months of the MEBB I've moved flat, been in hospital, gotten a tattoo, got a new job... It's been a busy few months! But Arke's been so supportive all along the way, and this story is SO good - I've been honoured to illustrate it  <3

He remembered it like it was yesterday.

The street nearly deserted with the sudden downpour that swept over the city, drowning the sounds of distant sirens under a misty haze of white noise.  A young man with nothing to his name but half a carton of cigarettes and his foolish pride.  Troubling thoughts of leaving the gang behind plaguing him as he stood there in the rain with a wet cigarette hanging from his split lip.  Drenched hair sticking to his forehead in chaotic lines as he stared at the Alliance recruitment center on the opposite end of the street.  The single step forward that changed his life forever.

 

[Art by adelaide_rain](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com/)

 

Two months later, he left Earth.  He never thought he would go back.

On Earth, reality was a stark photograph, the same static image on display every day like a museum piece: filthy streets and hazy air and ruined lives.  Stories of other kids in the gang had never felt familiar, no matter how much he wanted them to, no matter how much he wanted to feel something for that forsaken city, the very definition of hell on Earth.

His first years serving under the Alliance banner failed to make Earth fade into the memory it should have been.  The massacre on Akuze saw the same loss of blood and life that he had faced every day on the streets of that city.  ICT training dragged him back to Earth and carved scars into flesh like the youngest kids in the gang carved their initials into trees with the hope of leaving their marks, determined to prove that they survived in spite of it all.

But out there in space, he fought for a better ending for all of them.

He chased Saren around the galaxy even as unclear visions from the prothean beacon uncovered on Eden Prime haunted his sleep.  He stopped a Reaper invasion even as the Citadel Council resisted his efforts every step of the way.  He made the impossible choices even as the Collectors pursued him.  He built a team, destroyed a mass relay and a star system, and launched a suicide mission even as every decision weighed heavily upon his shoulders.

After he finally returned to Earth and surrendered the _Normandy_ and himself to the Alliance, fate reopened old wounds.  He remembered the day he signed his life away to the Alliance at the age of eighteen, the day he swore he would leave that wretched city behind forever – the day he gave himself a second chance.  He remembered it as he watched the bustle of city life from behind a pane of glass.  He remembered it as he watched his own life stagnate in that detention center.

Six months later, he left Earth.  And for the first time, he wanted to go back.

The Reapers hit in full force, destroying the city of Vancouver while the _Normandy_ barely managed to escape the fire.  He darted around the vast blackness of space, gathering resources and armadas alike, bringing the galaxy together despite the fear that lingered in his darkest thoughts.

And when he finally returned to Earth, it was the nightmare it had always been.

London had been devastated during the Reaper invasion.  Broken glass and warped rebar littered the streets, bodies piled up in alleyways and behind collapsed buildings, and ash and soot and smoke perpetually clouded the sky, obscuring the faint light of hope that flickered in distant stars.  He had the entire galaxy at his back, and yet seeing London as the reflection of his birth city nearly broke him.

Earth had always been a haunting memory of the past.

But he had never seen Earth like this.  He had never known the serenity of the countryside, the endless expanses of green, the peaceful silence broken only by birds chirping or the breeze sweeping across the leaves.  All his memories of Earth had been of ruin and chaos, manmade or otherwise.  He had never known that peace could exist here.

Not until Kaidan.

In the years following the end of the war, they sowed happy memories at his family’s orchard in the heart of British Columbia.  They spent scattered weekends there, sometimes many months apart, getting away from the reconstruction efforts in Vancouver and the struggle of healing wounds and bones – the agony of recovery itself.  Kaidan always led him by the hand, walking with him between seemingly endless rows of trees and shrubs, recalling almost shyly what little he remembered of his childhood visits to this place.

It was beautiful in so many ways.  A grand display of humanity’s will to cultivate and grow in the aftermath of the greatest devastation it had ever known.  A testament to Earth’s survival in spite of it all.  A place for just the two of them, a place bursting at the seams with life and promise. 

Today, he leaned against the trunk of a tree, foliage thick and heavy with burgeoning fruit, and breathed the clean air.  His cane lay abandoned in the grass beside him, the lingering reminder of his own recovery now evidence of just how far he had come.  He looked up at the familiar rows of trees and shrubs and then at the sky, blue and clear, the haze of ash and smoke forgotten with the passage of time.

Today, he remembered everything that had led him here.

Every event that shaped him.  Every moment that made him fall deeper in love.  Every word he never said.

He stared down at the papers in his hands – five sheets scrawled with every word he regretted never saying.  He had reread them at least a dozen times already this morning.  And he had just cycled back to the first sheet, holding his breath in preparation to start reading through them again, when he heard a voice.

“Shepard?”

He looked up to find Liara approaching him, holding the skirt of her gown up slightly with one hand.  Her eyes were kind, caring – as they always had been – but her brow was pinched, curious and concerned.  She had never been able to stop her worries from showing on her face, and it was obvious now that she worried about finding him there, alone, leaning against a tree in one of the secluded groves behind the cottage.

“Hey.”

“I’ve been looking for you,” she said, taking a few more steps toward him.  “Are you all right?”

All he could offer was a weak smile and a simple answer.  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

But even under the shade from the tree, he could see the tiniest upturn of her lip.  His eyes fell back to the papers, the weight of his words resting in his hands, every unspoken thought and buried feeling that he had carried for so long now heavy in his grasp.

Liara opened her mouth to speak, stuttering on a few broken thoughts before she finally managed to say something.  “Are those…?”

“I…”  The word trailed off into a tired sigh.  “I had written some letters over the past couple years,” he eventually continued.  “I had them saved on different servers all over the place.  Finally wrote them out onto something more… real.”

“I take it you never sent them?” she asked, tilting her head.

He finally looked up at her, meeting her eyes with a nearly rueful gaze.  “I couldn’t.”

“Something had been holding you back?”

“Cowardice, I guess.”

“I see.  So Kaidan never got to hear what you wanted to say back then.”

He felt his brow unconsciously arch with surprise, and then he laughed it off, albeit weakly.  “Am I that predictable?” he asked, a defeatist smile lingering on his lips.

She placed a hand on his forearm, her thumb gently stroking over the material of his suit.  “‘Predictable’ is not a word I would associate with you, Shepard,” she said, a breathless chuckle catching at end.  “You defy the odds every chance you get.”

“Heh… thanks, I suppose.”

She smiled, open and genuine.  “Well, perhaps it’s not too late,” she said.

He smiled back at her, then let his gaze fall away as he began to fold the papers.

“Yeah, you’re right about that.”

He tugged at the lapel of his jacket and slid the papers into the inside pocket.  Liara knelt down to retrieve the cane and then handed it off to him.

“Come on,” she said, pausing until he had the handle securely in his grasp.  “You don’t want to be late.”

“Yeah.”

Liara wrapped an arm around his, gently leading him out of the shade and into the afternoon sun.


	2. Virmire – 18.07.2183

He read the question in Kaidan’s eyes long before he ever heard it leave his mouth.

“Why me?  Why not her?”

It hung heavily in the air, draining the oxygen from the space between them until Shepard could no longer breathe.  It lingered on Kaidan’s face, in the tired lines at the corners of his eyes and the uncontrollable quiver of his lip.  The words were less an accusation and more a plea for an explanation – any explanation.  A reason for the empty chair in the comm room.  A reason for the guilt that made his voice hoarse and his heart clench.  A reason _why_.

Shepard knew what was being asked.  He had a dozen explanations at the ready, everything from a simple lack of time to the Alliance protocol that called for prioritizing higher-ranking officers in crisis situations.

But when he looked into Kaidan’s eyes, he realized that he had no real answer.

Kaidan was right there, at his side where he had always been, taking on the galaxy with that flicker in his eyes – hope, meaning, purpose.  But not now.  Not with this guilt weighing upon his shoulders.

All Shepard had to do was close the unfathomable distance between them.  All he had to do was reach for him.

But he sat still, feeling all the other sets of eyes on him and struggling to sit upright, to maintain posture as rigid as his starchy uniform, tight and constricting just like everything else.  He dismissed the team with as much stoic control as he could manage, muttered his way through the call with the Council, and retreated into the silence of his cabin.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and leaned back in his chair, digging the heels of his boots into the metal deck, artificial gravity holding him to the floor despite his best efforts to escape it.  He tilted his head back and closed his eyes and listened to the silence.

Tali had once commented that she found the quiet permeating the _Normandy_ unsettling, having come from a culture in which silence caused by burned-out motors or broken filters was as good as a death sentence.

Now he understood why.  Silence haunted the _Normandy_ like a ghost.

A hesitant knock at the door made his eyes crack open.

He could imagine it so clearly.  Kaidan’s hand still partly curled into a fist and raised halfway to the door, fingers twitching while he silently talked himself down from his second thoughts.  Kaidan’s brow setting with the determination that he finally managed to conjure up.  Kaidan’s shoulders stiffening as he assumed parade rest to meet his commanding officer.  And Kaidan’s eyes betraying all of it.

“Commander?”

“Yeah, come in.”

Shepard turned his eyes toward the door as it slid open, finding Kaidan not at parade rest as he had halfheartedly expected, but rather with his hands hanging ineffectually at his sides.  Then he let his gaze fall to the cold metal floor.  Kaidan hesitated before he took a few cautious steps into the room, eyes darting about like a cat’s, scoping out the dark cabin as though it were foreign territory.  And, up until that point, it had been.

After the door closed behind him, he finally looked at Shepard.

“Are you…”  He trailed off, swallowing hard as he watched Shepard’s eyes flick up to meet his.  He cleared his throat and tried again.  “How are you?”

Shepard let out a sound that was lost somewhere between a breathless chuckle and a sigh.  “I should be asking _you_ that question,” he said.

Kaidan hesitated, attempting to keep his expression steeled, but the twitch of his lip could not be so easily hidden.  “I’m—”

“You’re not fine,” Shepard cut in.

Kaidan ducked his head the slightest bit, watching Shepard from beneath the slowly-easing furrow of his brow.  He should have known that Shepard would read him so easily.  After every conversation, every regret of his past and every confession of his uncertainty about the future, Shepard had listened and understood all of it.

“Permission to speak freely?”

Shepard stood from his chair and answered, “You always have permission to speak freely with me, Lieutenant.”

Kaidan took a few more steps forward and suddenly stopped, catching himself at the brink of _too close_.  “Listen, I’m…”—he paused when the words caught in his throat on a hitched breath—“I’m sorry for what happened, for… for what I said.”

Shepard shook his head.  “Nobody’s to blame for this, Alenko.”

“I’m not questioning your decision,” Kaidan said, holding a hand up in some reassuring gesture, “I just… I don’t know, I wanted to hear something – anything.  I just needed…”

His words faded into another unsettled silence, drawing the moment out into eternity with the unspoken hope that he could find the right thing to say with just a few more moments’ time.  The words never came, the silence never seemed to end, and yet Kaidan never looked away.

Shepard could read it in his eyes: the guilt that came with surviving, the anguish of losing a friend and comrade, the residual embers of the words he could never say.

“I don’t have a reason for you,” he finally said.  “I really don’t.  God, I wish I did, but I… I couldn’t leave you behind, Kaidan.”

He almost cursed himself for using the lieutenant’s given name.  But it was too late to turn back, too late to retract his decision or his words or his actions, too late to will down his erratic heartbeat.  He knew the explanation was not enough.  He knew Kaidan deserved more.

And yet he watched that flicker of light return to Kaidan’s eyes, the creases upon his brow and at the corners of his mouth slowly easing, the hard set of his jaw moving on a single word.

“Shepard.”

They merely looked at one another, eyes meeting across the short distance between them.  It was grounding, steadying, the silence broken by a shared gaze and a shared moment.

“Y-Yeah,” Kaidan finally said, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet.  “Don’t get me wrong – I _am_ grateful for that.  I’m sorry you had to make that decision at all.  But I guess now I need to say something.”

“Tell me.”

“Thank you, Shepard.”

And then Shepard finally closed the distance between them.  He reached for Kaidan’s hand and held it – a weak grasp, but one that was warm and stable.  Gravity held them to the floor but something else, something much more subtle and yet cathartic, held them together in stationary orbit even as the galaxy spiraled out of control around them.

“It’s not over yet, Kaidan.”

He tightened his grip the slightest bit.  He found strength in the warmth of that callused hand squeezing his, impossibly gentle fingers that could hold a gun steady for hours at a time.

“I know, Shepard,” he replied.  “We’ll get it done.  Neither one of us has to shoulder this alone.”

Shepard edged closer to him, some force stronger than gravity pulling them together, and then he hesitated, catching himself before he could fall into his orbit.  He said nothing as he finally let go, fingers brushing along Kaidan’s as his hand fell back into place at his side.  But the warmth lingered upon his fingertips.

Kaidan turned his head slightly, eyelids growing heavy as his gaze fell away to the floor and his hand slowly rose to his temple.

“Are you all right?” Shepard asked.

“Ah…” Kaidan started, wincing as he looked back up at him, “just feel a bit of a headache coming on.”

“Why don’t you head for the med bay?” Shepard suggested, gesturing his head toward the door.  “Have Chakwas check up on your injuries, too.”

“Yeah, I will.”

“I’ll check on you later.  I promise.”

“I’d like— appreciate that.”

The small, weak smile on Kaidan’s face slowly disappeared as he turned away, eyes hidden beneath a flutter of eyelashes, shoulders stiffening as he headed for the door.

The ache of loss burned low in Shepard’s gut.

He turned away and took his place at his desk, settling against the back of his chair and feeling the weight of silence slowly bear down upon his shoulders once more.  He had so much more to say – so much he _needed_ to say.

He opened a new email and started typing.

 

> _I think the first thing I noticed about you was your eyes._
> 
> _Dedicated and loyal and focused, set on the mission with the sort of determination that I both envy and lament.  Sometimes soldiers like us don’t get the luxury of time to think things through or to weigh all our options.  Maybe that’s what makes it hard to know that we’re doing all we can… that we’re doing the right thing, that we hold on to our integrity despite everything the galaxy throws at us._
> 
> _But we’re all only human._
> 
> _I can’t explain why I made the choice I did down there on Virmire.  There’s no right answer to a question like that.  But I couldn’t leave you behind, Kaidan.  I need you by my side.  You keep me grounded.  You’re the voice I need to hear when there’s nothing but silence._
> 
> _But still, after Virmire, I could see it in your eyes – the guilt, the shame, the loss._
> 
> _Hell, it might’ve just been my own reflection._

 

His hands fell still, hovering a few inches above the holographic keyboard.  He glanced at the door, cold steel separating him from the man whose eyes had reflected his entire world back at him and somehow said everything he needed to hear.  The man whose strength he respected and whose devotion he admired.  The man whose presence brought him back into himself.

He swallowed hard as he scanned over the lines of text, words he would never say aloud flickering on the display screen, a muddle of thoughts and feelings that begged to be released from that silent confinement.

But he had said too much.

Shepard saved the draft, unwilling – or perhaps unable – to delete this small piece of himself, and then rose to his feet and headed for bed.  He collapsed in a heap upon the stiff mattress, stared up at the ceiling, and let his eyes fall closed, feeling the thrum of his heartbeat against his temples and attempting to ignore the coiling ache in the pit of his stomach.

He let the silence settle back into place.

There would be no sleep for him that night.


	3. Horizon – 21.08.2185

He had barely stumbled past the automatic sliding door before he collapsed to his knees and vomited.

Two years.

Two years since he had sent Kaidan away, since he had heard the distressed reluctance in Kaidan’s voice as he accepted the order, since he had watched Kaidan turn his back and run through the smoke and the flames engulfing the dying ship.  Two years since the _Normandy_ had exploded behind him in the silent vacuum of space, since he had drifted hopelessly toward the freezing planet below.  Two years since he had died alone.

Two years since he had felt the warmth of Kaidan’s hand and seen the light in his eyes.

And now, with his hands sprawled out over the cold metal floor, all he could see was the bile sinking into the middle of the steel toilet bowl.

Seeing Kaidan again on Horizon had been like a punch to the gut, forcing the air from his lungs and kickstarting his heart into overdrive.  Only when he saw the anguish in his eyes and heard the waver in his voice did Shepard realize that Kaidan was looking at him as though he expected him to disappear at any moment.

And all Shepard could offer him was a handshake.

But it was not enough.  He never felt the warmth of Kaidan’s hand through the cold steel of his gauntlet.  He felt like a stranger to himself, still drifting aimlessly through space, out of reach and out of time.

The word _Cerberus_ festered in the air between them, and Kaidan took a few steps back.

Kaidan was hurt.  Skeptical.  Angry.  A dozen different emotions had embedded themselves in the lines upon his brow and at the corners of his eyes.  And still he had held the same control over his words and actions that he always had.  He had said his piece and he had meant every word.

For Kaidan, two years had been a lifetime.

Shepard had replayed the conversation over and over in his head, letting himself sink into the seat in the back of the shuttle, hands gripping the side struts tighter and tighter with every iteration.  Every time Kaidan walked away was another reminder that he had lost so much more than _time_.

He had spent the time in the shuttle and the slow elevator ride up to his cabin imagining how it could have played out in some other way.  Too many scenarios rattled around in his head, unsteady and uncertain, playing on emotions he never knew he had – feelings that Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre, the savior of the Citadel should have easily cast aside in the face of his mission.  But there was one vision – taking Kaidan’s hand, holding him close, forehead pressing against his, assuring him that he was real – that made his stomach churn to the point of nausea.

He felt just as hollow after collapsing in front of the toilet bowl as he did before.

He finally pushed himself up from the washroom floor and cleaned up, only to find himself hesitating in front of the mirror, hands sliding down to the cold edges of the steel sink and grip slowly tightening.

Something had shattered, cutting him deep, leaving wounds raw and exposed.  Broken trust had carved out scars deeper than the ones left behind by his cybernetics.  And now he had the scattered pieces in hand and no way of knowing how they could all fit back together.  The man on the other side of the mirror was—

A knock at the door jarred him out of his own reflection.

“What is it?” he called, voice hoarse as it scraped through his throat.

“Thought you could use someone to talk to right about now,” Garrus answered.

Shepard heaved a sigh and left the washroom, drawing a hand up to his throbbing temple as he leaned against the wall near the locked cabin door. 

“You should go, Garrus.”

“Okay, let me rephrase that… your friend is here to talk some sense into you.”

“I’m not in the mood—”

“Shepard, will you open the damn door?”

Shepard swallowed what bile lingered in his throat and unlocked the door, turning his head away as the sections slid open with that familiar pneumatic hiss.  He retreated to his desk chair and let himself collapse into it, forearms resting carelessly on top of his thighs, eyes downcast on the cold metal deck.

“What do you want?”

“Now there’s a hell of a greeting,” Garrus muttered as he took a few steps inside.  “I just figured I’d check up on you.  That mission on Horizon was something else.  The colonists in stasis, the Collector ship…”

Shepard leaned forward and finally looked up.  “Yeah.”

“You did everything you could for the colony… more than anyone else could’ve done, for sure,” Garrus continued.  “Hell, you’ve been doing more than anyone else for such a long time.  Makes the rest of us look bad by comparison.  Coming back to life just wasn’t enough, huh?”

Shepard shook his head.  “It’s not like I asked for it, Garrus,” he said, his hands clasping together.

Garrus could see the tightness in Shepard’s posture, the way his shoulders stiffened with each passing moment of silence, the way the veins in his hands bulged at the knuckles.  “Yeah,” he said with a short shrug.  “This has all got to be taking its toll.  You must be exhausted.”

“I'm fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Garrus retorted.  “I spent enough time in C-Sec to know when someone’s bullshitting me.”

Shepard fidgeted in his chair, remembering the familiarity of the words and the situation on Virmire – the look in Kaidan’s eyes as he strained to keep every troubling thought from showing on his face.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” he finally continued.

“That much is obvious,” Garrus replied, his brow plate shifting slightly.  “Something tells me this is about more than the mission, though.  Seeing Kaidan again… that was rough, wasn’t it?”

Shepard’s breath caught in his throat.  The name clamped down over his neck and watched him struggle to breathe.

“Garrus, I…”

“Not so much a shot in the dark, then?”

No, it was a direct hit.  Garrus had always had perfect accuracy.

“He’s…”  The word trailed off into a sigh, and Shepard again shook his head.  “I don’t know.”

Shepard watched as Garrus’ mandibles twitched, one slightly restrained by the bandages that still covered half of his jaw.  Garrus looked just as bad as him, scarred by both choice and circumstance, every jagged line speaking louder than what either one of them could say with words alone.

But there was too much to say here, one way or another.  Shepard scrubbed a hand over his scalp, a motion that did little to calm his nerves but which gave him a needed moment of pause.

He could have really gone for a cigarette.

“He was standing right there, but I couldn’t do anything.  I couldn’t…”

 _Say anything_ , Garrus mentally added.

“He didn’t give you a chance to explain,” Garrus said.

“What’s there to explain?  I’ve been dead and gone for two years and I show up wearing Cerberus colors.  It’s exactly what it looks like.”

Garrus stayed quiet and waited for Shepard to continue, but the words had been lost to the silence that settled between them.  And then Shepard let out the weakest, most pathetic sound that Garrus had ever heard from him – a tiny, broken breath catching in the hollow of his throat.  He sounded like he was on the brink of either laughter or tears, and it was impossible to tell which.

He was scouring the galaxy and building a team to take on an impossible mission.  He knew it would sound ridiculous.  But still he swallowed hard and let his gaze fall to the floor, finding his lip quivering when he finally opened his mouth.

“I’ve never felt so alone.”

He expected a witty comeback from Garrus, some comment riddled with feigned offense or maybe just a simple ‘ouch, Shepard.’  Instead, Garrus put a clawed hand on his shoulder, and he looked up.

“I know, Shepard.”

Garrus knew what he meant, even if Shepard did not.

There was nothing more that he could have said, and Garrus knew Shepard well enough to know when to stop pushing.  The man had borne the weight of the galaxy upon his shoulders – twice now, between Saren and the Collector threat – and yet something so much smaller, so much more personal, weighed the heaviest.  So Garrus gave his shoulder a light squeeze of reassurance and then let himself out.

Left alone in his own space, the silence spoke louder than it ever had before.

Shepard turned his chair toward the terminal at his desk, intervallic notification flashes illuminating every tired crease upon his brow and the dark circles under his eyes, each one a silent demand for his attention.  But he had only one thing in mind.

He scrolled past all the unread messages, opened a new email, and began typing.

 

> _I wish I had your strength._
> 
> _Despite everything, you’re a strong man, Kaidan.  I admire your integrity, your honor, your sense of justice.  Your devotion to what you believe in.  If I were half the man you are, I would follow your lead._
> 
> _I can’t imagine what those two years that separated us were like for you.  I know you had already buried me, that I was just a ghost to you when we met on Horizon.  But ever since I woke up on that lab table under Cerberus’ watch, I never felt real, not until I saw you standing there, just out of reach, when…_
> 
> _When I saw your face, when I heard your words, when I felt the pain reflected in your eyes._

 

He stopped himself there, eyes stinging as he scanned over the words.  He was no wordsmith.  He had no idea how to say everything he wanted to.

But he had to try.

 

> _Watching you walk away on Horizon broke something within me.  Maybe I'll never know what it was, exactly, but that's the best I know how to describe it… broken.  I missed you before you even left my sight.  I know what I have to do, but I_

 

The words had begun to blur together, vision clouded by the surprising wetness that pooled at the corners of his eyes.  He left the sentence unfinished, hands darting up to wipe the evidence from his eyes as he stood up and headed for the bed at the lower level, leaving the words frozen on the display screen, some fractured thought he might never finish.

In the morning, he would wake up and head for the next location specified in some dossier he had refused to even finish reading.  But Kaidan would still be out there in the universe somewhere, far away from him, forever out of sight and out of reach.

The loss weighed the heaviest upon his shoulders.

On Virmire, he had left behind a colleague and friend.

On Horizon, he had lost Kaidan just the same.


	4. Mars – 24.02.2186

Give him an objective and a rifle and he could hit a target with perfect accuracy.

But take away either one and he was as good as blind.

The moment he laid Kaidan’s unconscious body on the gurney was the moment that the universe stopped spinning with calculated certainty.  His hands clenched over the edges of the bed, scrambling for purchase as he shifted his weight back and forth between his feet, struggling to find gravity – something to hold him still, to bring him back into himself.  He saw only the man lying still and silent before him.  He heard nothing but the erratic thrum of his heartbeat against his temples.  He felt nothing but panic, desperation – fear.

Fear of the unknown.  Fear of the uncertainty that had festered between them on Mars and lingered in the silence that permeated the med bay.  Fear of a universe deprived of the man whose voice grounded him and whose strength inspired him.  Fear of losing Kaidan entirely.

He was right there – within arm’s reach – and yet it felt like the breadth of the galaxy itself, an endless expanse of darkness, the silent vacuum of space that captured every unspoken thought until he had no words left.  There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say, and suddenly he was back there, careening toward the surface of Alchera, feeling the air forced out of his lungs and his body going cold—

“Kaidan needs medical attention!”

Liara’s voice dragged him back to the reality of the moment.  He glanced up at her from beneath a furrowed brow, lips pressed into a hard line, still waiting and watching and hoping.  She pressed forward, forcing him to look at her – forcing him to actually _see_ her.

“We have to leave the Sol System.”

He knew that.  One day, he would go back to Earth.  Until then, he had to somehow navigate a galaxy spiraling out of control.  Somewhere deep down, he knew that. 

Curt orders to head for the Citadel fell mechanically from his lips.  He met with Hackett when hailed, gave his obligatory salute, and mulled over Liara’s words, only to find himself drawn back to the med bay, pulled back by the only force that could steady him amidst the chaos that waited for him on Earth and everywhere else.

The pneumatic hiss of the door closing behind him was his only refuge from the silence that lurked in the med bay like so many of the other ghosts that haunted the _Normandy_.  When he stopped at Kaidan’s bedside, the silence crept back into place.

He leaned against the desk, arms folded tight, watching, waiting – for words, for movement, for anything.  His hands tightened into fists, cold metal gauntlets scraping against armored forearms, holding on to what stability they could.  But even then, hope tinged with desperation made the air thick, uncertainty clouding the space between them like the dust storms on Mars.

After all the harsh words exchanged on Mars, frustration and doubt weaving between two old soldiers struggling to find each other, Shepard had said nothing at all.

Nothing that had mattered, in any case.  There was so much he could have said.  So much he _should_ have said.

And now Kaidan lay there, eyes closed to the world around him, lost to the silence just the same.

“God, I’m sorry, Kaidan,” Shepard whispered, his hands clenching a little tighter.  “I’m so sorry…”

He did not even hear the door open and close behind him.

Liara stood a few feet away, hands folded at her midriff.  “Shepard, are you all right?”

He looked up at her, and the expression on his face made her shudder.

The creases between his brows.  The stretched lines at the corners of his eyes.  The twitch in his bottom lip as he wandered through the haze of thoughts and words that rattled about in his head and lingered on the tip of his tongue.

“Liara, I thought…”  He glanced at Kaidan, the sharp angles of his profile so much softer for that split-second, and finally looked back at her.  “I wanted you to prep our findings for presentation to the Council.”

“I will,” she said, her tone light and soothing but her eyes all too telling.  “I just wanted to make sure you were…”

Her gaze fell upon Kaidan at the same time Shepard’s did.  When she looked up at him, his eyes were still fixed on Kaidan, shiny with unshed tears.  She knew that he would never let them fall in her presence.

“He’ll be fine, Shepard.”

He watched the subtle rise and fall of Kaidan’s armor plating.  At least there was that.

“He’s a soldier,” Liara added, smiling weakly even when Shepard refused to see it.  “He’s tough and stubborn, just like someone else I know.”

Finally, he picked his gaze up, the feeble upturn of his lip the only indication that he had even heard her words.  And all he said was, “Yeah.”

Liara’s faint smile grew marginally wider, then she turned on her heel, granting him one last glance over her shoulder as she began to walk away.

Shepard turned back to Kaidan.  He had always found himself pulled toward Kaidan.  He always would.

They were so much alike – occasionally guarded but still finding something in one another, something raw and real and unfathomably deep.  Maybe that was why it was so easy to find himself reflected in Kaidan’s eyes.

“So please open your eyes, Kaidan…”

When the words were returned with only silence, Shepard laughed under his breath, a fractured sound that stumbled over the sob at the base of his throat.  He drew a hand to his lip as though it might quell the sounds, the cold metal stinging his flesh, and finally let it fall again.

There was still so much more he had to say, and there was only one way he knew how.

He drew up the display on his omni-tool.

 

> _I’m lost without you._

 

And when his fingers quivered beyond his control, he powered down the display and finally let the tears fall.

No one saw him pull up a chair to Kaidan’s bedside and cradle one gauntleted hand in both of his own, mouth moving but words muted, eyes fixed on his bloody and bruised face.  No one heard the broken breath that slipped between slightly-parted lips as he held that limp hand a little tighter, a tiny exhale lost under the sound of metal sliding against metal.

He sat and waited, watching Kaidan’s eyes and hoping he would see the subtle shine reflected in them one more time.


	5. Normandy SR-2 – 13.04.2186

For the first time in years, Shepard had a dream instead of a nightmare.

A dream that he had previously experienced as a child, fantastical images of a seascape based on stolen glances through barricaded shop windows or the flickering ad display screens that lined the city streets.  A dream that had once been his only means of escaping those streets was now a dream of the future, forged from a memory Kaidan had recalled while they sat together at Apollo’s Café: every subtle waver of sunlight reflecting off the water, every cloud stretching across the sky above the horizon line, every swirl of orange and yellow as the sun began its slow descent over English Bay. 

It truly was a beautiful view.

Almost as beautiful as the sight that greeted him when he woke from that dream.

The dim blue glow from the aquarium traced over the planes of Kaidan’s bare shoulders and back and wove its way over the occasional scar.  Dark lashes fanned out over his cheeks, concealing the depths of his whiskey-dark eyes behind closed lids.  The subtle upturn of his lip lingered as he lay there, cheek resting against Shepard’s collarbone, still asleep – still dreaming.  

Shepard felt like he was still dreaming, too.  He could still see it, still feel it.

Warm breaths wafting about his neck and the prickling sensation of stubble brushing backward against overheated skin.  Dark eyes gazing back at him, tender and alight with hope and love.  Battle-worn skin gleaming with sweat and grazing against his own with every achingly slow thrust.  Callused hands cradling his jaw as their lips met over and over in impossibly soft kisses, cherishing the moment for what it was – stolen time where all the pain of the past three years dissipated into the darkness of space and left only the two of them, together, in a tiny galaxy all their own.

Here and now, this man was his entire universe.

Kaidan stirred from sleep, an angular cheekbone shifting against Shepard’s neck, a hint of stubble teasing at warm skin as he angled his head and softly pressed his lips to his lover’s jaw.  His eyes opened slowly, bright and beautiful as they took in the sight before them, as though still drifting within a dream.

Dark, disheveled hair stuck to his forehead in messy lines, and Shepard chuckled under his breath as he pushed a few stray locks back and watched that subtle quirk at the corner of Kaidan’s mouth curl into a proper smile.

“Hey.”

Amazing how a single word could make Shepard’s heart stutter like that.

On the battlefield, their words and actions synced as though it were instinctual, the give-and-take between them molded by both their training as soldiers and their bond as friends.  It was still so unreal to think that they had somehow made it here in the midst of war, drawing patterns with faltering hands and mapping out scars that they had never before shown to anyone else.  But they had reached out to each other, and now they held on for everything they could, finding stability in that embrace, in each other.

“I could get used to this,” Shepard said, tracing his fingertip over the graying hair at Kaidan’s temple.

Kaidan shifted against him, the arm draped over Shepard’s waist clutching a little tighter as he asked, “To what?”

Fighting side-by-side with the man whose trust he treasured.  Holding on to a reality that had been a dream just months before.  Waking up wrapped in that man’s embrace and knowing it was finally real.

“Everything.”

He could feel Kaidan’s cheek brushing against the crook of his neck, that bright smile stretching into a contented smirk.  And then Kaidan moved his arm from Shepard’s waist as he began to push himself up onto his forearms.  Shepard watched him stretch his arms out at his sides as he sat up and began to turn toward the other end of the bed.

“If we stay here much longer, we may never get up,” Kaidan said with a sigh.

Shepard chuckled under his breath.  “Sounds good to me.”

He grabbed Kaidan’s forearm and dragged him back down to his level, smiling when Kaidan let out a breathy laugh, light and airy and free.  Kaidan repositioned himself, the remnants of laughter lingering at the corners of his mouth in a faint smile as his arms framed Shepard’s shoulders, eyes soft as he looked down at the man laid bare beneath him.

“John…”

“Hm?”

“Nothing, just…”  Kaidan ducked his head, the faint light from the aquarium casting new shadows over the sharp lines of his face.  “I love you.”

Shepard felt his heart surge into his ribcage, his lips parting slightly on a breathless sigh, the words trapped in the hollow of his throat.  When Kaidan leaned down to kiss him, his eyes fluttered shut, every tender touch of their lips closing the distance between them until all they could feel was each other.  Shepard held on, thumbs at his temples and fingers curling around the nape of his neck as they kissed, tender and light and full of meaning – and he hoped it said everything he wanted.

Kaidan traced a hand over Shepard’s temple and to his cheek, rough hands somehow both gentle and insistent, and finally pulled back.  Shepard opened his eyes and Kaidan was smiling back at him, all the hesitancy of the past gone and replaced with certainty and purpose, something uniquely beautiful and perfect and _right_.

When Kaidan turned his head away and rose from the bed, Shepard swallowed what words remained trapped in his throat.

“I’m going to shower,” Kaidan said, glancing over his shoulder.  “You coming with?”

Shepard hesitated.  “No, I’m…” he started, but he faltered and sighed.  “I think I’m good right here for now.”

Kaidan’s eyebrow quirked, but still his smile grew a little wider as he said, “Okay.”

Shepard pushed himself up on his forearms to watch Kaidan ascend the short staircase and finally disappear behind the washroom door.  He propped himself up against the headboard, hands folding over each other atop the coverlet that had slid from his chest and pooled at his waist.  When he heard the faint spray from the shower, he reached for the datapad that had been abandoned on the nightstand.

The display flickered on to show his last mission report, an unfinished paragraph halted mid-sentence hanging off the end of it.  Kaidan had been the only person to ever convince him to slow down, to appreciate what he did have outside of the horrors of the past and the impossible mission ahead of him.  Kaidan had been the only person to ever fit his broken pieces back together.

He closed the report and opened a new document.

 

> _People call me a hero.  They say I inspire people back home and all over the galaxy, that I’m the only one who can do the impossible, that I give people hope.  Sometimes it feels like I’ll never live up to it.  I guess I need hope, too.  And you’ve given me that hope.  You inspire me._
> 
> _And you lead me by the hand into something greater.  You’ve made me so much more than I ever thought I could be – so much more than I’ve ever been._

 

His hand stilled the moment he heard the water stop, holding the datapad with a looser grasp when Kaidan made his way to the top of the stairs and stood there, clutching the edges of the towel draped around his waist with one hand and smoothing back the mussed, wet hair from his forehead with the other.

But it was written all over his face.  Lip pinched at one corner as though straining to find the right words.  The telltale creases between his brows visible even from that distance.  The concerned pair of eyes that sought his and never let go.

“John, are you…?”

He set the datapad down on the sheet.  “What?”

Kaidan swallowed hard.  “Are you okay?”

The moment itself was easy enough to recognize: that point at which he looked at Kaidan and realized that he loved him, that Kaidan was worth living for, that the way Kaidan looked at the stars was worth every battle out there in the darkness of space.  The fall, the slow descent into one another’s eyes and hands and hearts, was a bit harder to recognize.

But Shepard knew he had fallen.  He was no longer alone.  He had so much worth fighting for.  The galaxy continued its own slow descent into hell, and yet, for the first time, he believed he could stop it.  He truly believed it.

“Yeah,” he said, gaze so easily meeting Kaidan’s over the distance between them.  “Definitely.”

Kaidan smiled, and it was all he needed.

They exchanged a few glances and fewer words as Kaidan dressed, his uniform snapping back into place as yet another reminder of what reality still waited for them, tight and constricting and yet familiar for the same reasons.  They had endured so much already, both apart and together, but finally, with just a few words straight from the heart, they had found each other.

When the door closed and silence returned to the still cabin air, Shepard picked the datapad up once more.

 

> _I love you, Kaidan.  I wish I would’ve said it so long ago.  I wish I had the courage to tell you every day._

 

His hand slowly fell from the screen, fingers curling against the soft coverlet.  He had never been one for too many words.  Saying them out loud was so much more difficult than typing them into a document that, by now, he knew Kaidan would never see.  He set the datapad aside and scrubbed a hand over his scalp.

Maybe one day – if he lived long enough – he would tell Kaidan everything.

Until then, those three words would remain a silent confession.


	6. London – 12.05.2186

Shepard almost preferred the silence of the _Normandy_.

Silence had long haunted the _Normandy’s_ cramped corridors and festered in the recycled air.  But he would have given anything to be back there now, to never again hear Kaidan’s voice tremble like it did as they stood opposite one another in the FOB in the heart of London.

“We know this is goodbye.”

The words slipped from those scarred lips as a whisper, both a soft-spoken surrender and a quiet plea for more time.  Time was rapidly running out.  But there had never been enough time for them to begin with.

Tiny moments interspersed throughout the war had become memories Shepard wanted to carry with him as time pressed mercilessly onward.

The times that they sat side-by-side in the shuttle when returning to the _Normandy_ from some battle, their gauntleted fingers linking together as they leaned on each other and slept off the exhaustion.  The times that Kaidan caught him whispering painful apologies in his sleep, trapped in the throes of a nightmare, and then woke him and held on to him with everything he had.  The times that he sat at Kaidan’s bedside and held his hand, watching the sweat bead upon his brow and his mouth pinch at the corners as he struggled through another migraine.  The times that they made love with the sheets draping off their bodies, damp foreheads pressing together and shining in the light from the aquarium, and said everything through breathless kisses and gentle caresses of skin.

At that moment, he looked into Kaidan’s eyes, and time stood still.

Time stood still and there was nothing but the two of them.

Time stood still and he loved him with every fiber of his being.

Shepard loved him too much to let him think that this was all that was left for them.

“When this is over, I’m going to be waiting for you.  You’d better show up.”

“Don’t get me wrong.  I’m going to fight like hell for the chance to hold you again.”

The words were too much.  The words were not enough.  The words were both everything and nothing, lost entirely as they edged closer to one another, finding hope in moments past.

Their lips met, each tender motion seizing all the chances they had never taken, a promise of the future buried under desperation to hold on to the time that they had here, now, in cold metal gauntlets sliding over flesh that strained to find warmth in the dark London night, in hearts beating in unison beneath the armor that weighed so heavily upon both of them.

Shepard pulled back slowly, cautiously, watching Kaidan’s eyes open just as slowly, as though waking from a dream.

“This isn’t goodbye, Kaidan,” he said, voice low and stern, not quite his _Commander_ tone but threateningly close to it.  “The fight’s not over yet.”

“Yeah, I guess not,” Kaidan replied.  He let out a breathy laugh, that characteristic sound that had, at so many times in the past, been so comforting to hear.  “We’ve been through so much hell already, huh.”

“Just a little bit more to go.”

“Heh, yeah.”  Kaidan’s eyes softened as he tilted his head down slightly, that whiskey-dark hue peeking out from beneath a strong brow.  “Still, though.  Being here with you… it means we made it.  We’re home, right?  That has to count for something.”

Standing in the ruins of London reminded him too much of that sprawling metropolis of underground gangs and rampant corruption and crippling poverty that he dreaded to think of as _home_.  But in Kaidan’s eyes, the devastation that peeked through the façade was just as difficult to bear, the cracks in the surface spreading further with every feigned smile and every forced chuckle.

And Shepard lost his words to the silence that settled between them, cold and thick like the ashy air all around them.

“Yeah,” was all he could manage.

“Looks a bit different than I’d hoped it would,” Kaidan continued, and Shepard cringed when he heard the waver in his voice.  “But still, I think— I wonder how Vancouver looks right now.  How it will look in the morning when this is over, when... when the sun comes out over English Bay.”

Maybe they both knew they were lying to each other.  Maybe they both knew the little quirks at the corners of their mouths – too weak to be proper smiles – would never be enough to maintain the façade.  Maybe, just for a moment, they both wanted the dream to live on.

He took Kaidan’s hand, metal clanking against metal with the deliberate action – one last time to hold him as he was and how he should always be: still standing, still breathing, still alive despite the odds that had stacked up against them over the past three years, despite the ruin all around them, despite the clouds of ash and soot hiding the stars from view.

“It’s gonna’ be beautiful, Kaidan.”

And Kaidan smiled, the largest smile he could bear, every fear embedded in the lines on his face and every hope buried much deeper, shining only through the unshed tears that welled at the corners of his eyes.  Shepard watched those quivering lips part on a weak chuckle, felt the faint warmth of his breath, heard the crack in his voice—

“It’s gonna’ be what it is.”

Kaidan looked away, gaze falling to the crevices in the concrete beneath his feet.  Shepard let go of his hand, gravity settling heavily upon his shoulders.  The silence that weighed in the air between them was so much louder than the distant sounds of gunfire and explosions and Reaper beams.

Shepard walked away, and loss coiled in his gut.

Loss of control.  Loss of certainty.  Loss of words.

He stumbled past some dilapidated building, warped rebar poking out of collapsed concrete walls and broken glass littering the ground all around it.  The artificial lights posted throughout the FOB could barely penetrate the darkness that lurked in the ruin all around him, rubble piled high enough to hide the form of the man so many had called a hero now leaning against a partially-collapsed wall, hand sprawled out over the cracked surface as he doubled over and retched.

Maybe he would end up dying on those streets like he had always imagined as a child.

Maybe he would lie there in the rubble, blood pooling in his lungs and muddled thoughts swirling about in his head like a tide, and look up at the light that had barely begun to shine through the perpetual haze of ash and soot.

And if he died there, at least he would die knowing that he had fought like hell for everything he loved.

He activated his omni-tool, the orange glow reflecting jaggedly off the patterns of bloodstains and dirt that had caked upon his armor.  He drew in a breath and held it as he opened his messages and scrolled through the endless list, endless words that had seemed so far-off now, lost to the rubble and ruin just like everything else.  With a sharp exhale, he watched the condensation of his breath dissipate into the cold night air and then opened a new message.

 

> _I wish I could’ve fallen in love with you under better circumstances.  I wish I could’ve given you everything you deserve, nothing standing in our way, no strings attached.  I wish this all could’ve happened the right way._
> 
> _But I don’t regret a moment.  I can’t.  I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.  I’d never know what it means to love someone if it had happened any other way.  It means everything to me._
> 
> _You mean everything to me.  You always have.  You always will._
> 
> _I love you.  Until the end of it all, until my heart stops… always._

 

He powered down his omni-tool and turned to lean back against the wall, the plating of his armor shifting awkwardly against the uneven surface.  He closed his eyes and he knew that there was no peace to be found here.

Walking away from Kaidan had been like leaving home.

But it was going to be what it was.


	7. The Orchard – 30.05.2189

He remembered it like it was yesterday.

The moment he woke to the mechanical sound of his own heart rate, slow and steady beeps that grew quicker and more frantic as reality jarred him out of the quiet stillness that had claimed him for god knows how long.  The fear that set in when he found himself unable to move, restrained by bandages and tubes and stitches.  His eyes opening only to wince at the artificial light, too harsh and stinging to be heaven.  His chapped lips parting on what few words managed to scrape through his throat.  The smell of antiseptic and blood permeating the room and somehow filtering through the numb haze that had claimed so many of his senses.  The single thought that pervaded all of it.

_Kaidan_.

His jaw clenched and his lips pressed into a hard line like they had after Virmire.  His heartbeat thrummed against his temples like it had after Horizon.  His eyes darted back and forth, seeking something familiar to steady him like they had after Mars.

The voices that managed to make themselves heard were unfamiliar.  The faces that gazed back down at him were unrecognizable.  He closed himself off from the doctors’ tests and nurses’ needles and psychiatrists’ questions and let the routine claim him.  He fell asleep every night to the rhythm of his own heartbeat and woke every morning to the sound of it still beating, ticking away the seconds and minutes and hours in some salvaged hospital on the outskirts of London – or what was left of it.

But one day, it was different.

He drifted from the fog of sleep into the darkness behind his eyelids, a vague sensation creeping from his fingertips to the palm of his hand and sending static through nerves that were still on the mend.  His eyes opened slowly, and his heart shuddered against his ribcage at the sight that greeted him: Kaidan there, holding his hand, cheek resting atop an arm that lay on starchy hospital sheets.  Kaidan stirred from sleep just as slowly, angling his head against the sheet and breathing a deep sigh.  When their eyes met it was like they had finally fallen into orbit again, and the world turned with a little more certainty.

His hair had grown long enough to conceal the scar at his hairline, and yet Kaidan’s fingers ran through it and found the mark so easily, a muscle memory mapped into his fingertips.  And every sore muscle, every aching bone, every uncomfortable stretch of scar tissue was worth it – just to see Kaidan there, just to feel him at his side, just to breathe him in.  After everything, they were there, together.  They cupped each other’s faces in trembling hands, and both of them said everything without words.

_I couldn’t leave you behind.  I love you more than anything._

Since then, Kaidan never left his side, and Earth finally felt like home.

His recovery had been harsh and uncertain, new scars embedding themselves within old ones, measuring progress with fading stitch marks and healing skin grafts and scabbed-over wounds.  His muscles strained and his bones ached and his flesh had been marked in more ways than he might ever know, each of his scars speaking louder than words, each revealing his lasting weaknesses and yet attesting to just how far he had come.  His body fought him every step of the way, a battle constantly being waged long after the war was over – but he was alive, he was in love, and he had so much to live for.

So if he had to make his way down the aisle between rows of white garden chairs with Liara’s steadying grip on one hand and a cane clutched in the other, he would take it.

Today, he remembered everything that had led him here.

Today, in front of the friends whom had become the family he never had, he took Kaidan’s hand and stood at the base of the gazebo’s short staircase.  He looked into Kaidan’s eyes and saw his own: no tension in the set of his jaw from the constant strain of duty, no stiffness in his shoulders from bearing the weight of the galaxy itself – only that subtle flicker of light, every little piece of his soul laid bare in the eyes of the man he loved.

He loved the little creases that formed at the corners of Kaidan’s eyes when he smiled and spoke.

“You look good, John.”

Even after three years of reaching out and holding on, even after the times of painful separation in which they had to let go, and even if Shepard’s body was still in a state of disrepair at the end of it all, Kaidan wanted him enough to ask for his hand, however rough from scar tissue it was now.

Shepard watched the way Kaidan’s eyes flicked to the side when Liara took the cane from his free hand.  Kaidan’s smile grew a little wider when she returned to her seat in the first row, letting Shepard stand on his own, steady in Kaidan’s grasp, in the gravity that held them to the earth and to each other.

The afternoon sun lit the angles of Kaidan’s suit and cast shadows over the slopes and curves of the starchy dress shirt beneath.  A little bit tight, the collar sitting low on his throat as he swallowed hard.  Familiar like his armor but not nearly as heavy.

He was beautiful.  Shepard squeezed his hand a little tighter.

“God, so do you,” he said, an airless laugh catching at the end.

There was no minister to tell them how to proceed or some protocol to follow.  There was only the two of them, standing before their friends in the light of another day.

Shepard looked at the crowd.

Liara was wedged between James and Tali, a bright smile on her face and a flicker in her eye despite James’ obvious discomfort with his suit and Tali’s fidgeting.  Garrus had never been one to wear his emotions on his face – perhaps the chitin was too rigid for such things – but the slight extent of his mandibles and quirk in his brow plate said more than enough.  Even Jack and Miranda seemed to be willing to sit next to one another for the occasion, both elegantly dressed but only one looking like it had happened on purpose.

It all felt like some stark photograph, not of the harsh reality he had previously known Earth to be, but of something hopeful and beautiful, so many drawn together by a future they could all share.

Shepard looked back at him, and it was Kaidan’s turn to squeeze his hand.

“Today we pledge our love to each other.”

Kaidan sounded so diplomatic.  Evidently the endless meetings and ceremonies even during the reconstruction efforts had given Kaidan a newfound confidence in his voice.  More likely, he had stood in front of the mirror and practiced until the point where it became second nature.  Shepard could imagine Kaidan standing there in front of the washroom mirror: trying not to watch the nervous tics in his jaw, raking his hands through his hair when he messed up, cursing silently – or, occasionally, out loud – when he stuttered halfway through a sentence and had to start over.

Shepard grinned at the thought.  Kaidan returned it, a little sheepishly, but with perfect understanding, and finally continued.

“As we start our vows, let them be our guidance, our promise to support and cherish and love one another for the rest of our days.  Nothing can come between us and there’s nothing we can’t handle, as friends and partners.  This is our bond, our promise, until death do us part.”

Shepard’s heart was pounding in his chest, ticking away the moments as he stood there, just like it had when he woke up in the hospital and found nothing else steady in the aftermath of the war.

“Kaidan,” he began, voice weak and gaze soft, just like they had been when he met Kaidan’s eyes for the second-first time in that drab hospital room.  “I... I haven’t been able to say everything I’ve wanted to over these past years.  Sometimes it was just circumstance.  More often it was my own cowardice.  I’d look into your eyes and see the world reflected back at me… a promise of the future that I never thought could be my reality.”

Shepard let go of Kaidan’s hand, gaze falling somewhere between Kaidan’s face and the buttons on his jacket.  He knew Kaidan well enough to know that there was some subtle upturn of his brow, some little confused gesture that never needed vocalization.  He tugged at one lapel and drew a set of folded sheets from the inside pocket of his jacket.  He could practically feel Liara’s beaming smile from some feet away.

And then his eyes flicked up to meet Kaidan’s, a shy smile quirking at the corner of his mouth as he watched Kaidan’s lip quiver.

“John…” he started, but he faltered and swallowed hard.  He drew a hand up to the collar of his shirt to loosen it, as though the words were suddenly caught in it.  “What are…?”

Shepard loved the little flicker in Kaidan’s eyes.  Those eyes said everything.  They always had.

He clutched the papers a little tighter, eyes reluctantly leaving Kaidan’s, and yet he could still see them between every line of inelegant handwriting, still feel them watching him and holding him steady, grounding him in the moment and in the feeling that this was all real.

“I think the first thing I noticed about you was your eyes.  Dedicated and loyal and focused, set on the mission with the sort of determination that I both envy and lament.  Sometimes soldiers like us don’t get the luxury of time to think things through or to weigh all our options.  Maybe that’s what makes it hard to know that we’re doing all we can, that we’re doing the right thing, that we hold on to our integrity despite everything the galaxy throws at us.

“But we’re all only human.  I can’t explain why I made the choice I did down there on Virmire.  There’s no right answer to a question like that.  But I couldn’t leave you behind, Kaidan.  I need you by my side.  You keep me grounded.  You’re the voice I need to hear when there’s nothing but silence.

“But still, after Virmire, I could see it in your eyes – the guilt, the shame, the loss.  Hell, it might’ve just been my own reflection.

“I wish I had your strength.  Despite everything, you’re a strong man, Kaidan.  I admire your integrity, your honor, your sense of justice.  Your devotion to what you believe in.  If I were half the man you are, I would follow your lead.

“I can’t imagine what those two years that separated us were like for you.  I know you had already buried me, that I was just a ghost to you when we met on Horizon.  But ever since I woke up on that lab table under Cerberus’ watch, I never felt real, not until I saw you standing there, just out of reach, when I saw your face, when I heard your words, when I felt the pain reflected in your eyes.

“Watching you walk away on Horizon broke something within me.  Maybe I'll never know what it was, exactly, but that's the best I know how to describe it: broken.  I missed you before you even left my sight.  I know what I have to do, but I—”

He had to stop, just a brief choked laugh that revealed how threateningly close to tears he was – just like he had been back then.  But he never looked up, the small stack of papers creasing slightly in his grasp as his fingers began to tremble against his will.

“I’m lost without you.  People call me a hero.  They say I inspire people back home and all over the galaxy, that I’m the only one who can do the impossible, that I give people hope.  Sometimes it feels like I’ll never live up to it.  I guess I need hope, too.  And you’ve given me that hope.  You inspire me.  And you lead me by the hand into something greater.  You’ve made me so much more than I ever thought I could be – so much more than I’ve ever been.

“I love you, Kaidan.  I wish I would’ve said it so long ago.  I wish I had the courage to tell you every day.  I wish I could’ve fallen in love with you under better circumstances.  I wish I could’ve given you everything you deserve, nothing standing in our way, no strings attached.  I wish this all could’ve happened the right way.

“But I don’t regret a moment.  I can’t.  I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.  I’d never know what it means to love someone if it had happened any other way.  It means everything to me.  You mean everything to me.  You always have.  You always will.

“I love you.  Until the end of it all, until my heart stops… always.”

Shepard returned the papers to the inside pocket of his jacket, careless folds causing the lining to bulge the slightest bit.  He looked up intently, decidedly, every word that had weighed so heavily in his hands now light and free in the tiny space between them.  

“We've been through hell together, Kaidan.  Thank you for leading me to heaven.”

Shoulders that had long been forcibly stiff as he issued commands or sat through meetings or bounded through a hail of gunfire on some far-off planet finally relaxed.  The weight of the galaxy itself had been lifted from his shoulders after all this time.

And Kaidan tilted his head down slightly, the faint flush that crept over his cheeks entirely unwelcome.  “How am I supposed to follow that, John?  Shit, now”—he let out a nervous chuckle—“now I’m drawing a total blank.”

Shepard smiled.  Really, there was nothing else that needed to be said.

The feeling of the metal ring sliding over his finger, warm from where Kaidan had been holding it between a forefinger and thumb, said it all.

Their lips met and their hearts beat in unison and the hoots and hollers from their makeshift family faded into the background.  And for a moment – knowing the fight was over, holding each other’s hands with new purpose, feeling the softness of one another’s lips – everything was perfect.

Everything.

 

[Art by adelaide_rain](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com/)

 

* * *

 

 

There was another moment during the reception, somewhere in the middle of their first dance under the lights strung up between posts on the terrace, when he put his head on Kaidan’s shoulder and closed his eyes, and there was nothing but the two of them, scarred hands clinging to starchy suits as they swayed together with the slow song, holding each other up, holding each other together.

“Maybe the world I knew back then is gone now,” Shepard whispered.

Kaidan turned his head slightly toward his husband’s, rough cheeks sliding against each other, his lips moving against the shell of Shepard’s ear.  “What do you mean?” he asked.

“So much has changed,” Shepard answered.  “I could only imagine this kind of peace – this kind of happiness – as a kid, you know?  Hell, just a few years ago, I never wanted to come back to Earth.  It was always in the back of my mind like some never-ending nightmare.  I never knew there could be peace here… real peace.  But it’s here now.  It’s here, finally.  And I owe it to you.”

Kaidan chuckled, that warm sound that Shepard would never tire of.  “I think the _galaxy_ owes _you_ , John,” he said.  And then the smile faded from his lips, chin tilting down over Shepard’s shoulder and fingers curling a little tighter at the back of his suit.  “I, uh… had no idea you felt that way about— well, about everything.”

“Yeah.”  Shepard swallowed hard and hesitated, searching for the right words.  “I guess I spent a lot of time lost… in the mission, in the way things had gone down between us, in what could’ve been or maybe _should’ve_ been,” he finally said.  He could still feel the odd crinkle in the papers pressed against his chest as he and Kaidan moved together, however muffled by the fabric between them it was.  He let out a weak laugh, lifted his hands to Kaidan’s shoulder blades, and said, “I guess I just needed to find my way home.”

“Is it everything you’d hoped for?” Kaidan asked.

Shepard pulled back and looked him in the eye, every tiny light reflected in that brown hue saying everything they needed to.

All the times that Kaidan had held him, never having to tell him that he was doing everything he could even as the galaxy spiraled out of control around them.  All the times that Kaidan had been made speechless, only letting out a breathy laugh that never failed to make Shepard laugh, too.  All the times that Kaidan had put a hand over Shepard’s heart and kissed his scars, every touch giving him a reason to breathe, a reason to feel, a reason to live.

Still, he brought a hand to Kaidan’s cheek, a rough palm brushing against barely-there stubble, warm skin and a warmer smile.

“More than that.”

Life had left plenty of marks on both of them, chance meetings and missed opportunities and stolen moments weaving a story uniquely and painfully them, nightmares festering in the darkest moments and old wounds tearing apart even the toughest battle-worn skin.

There were times he hated to remember.  There were moments he cherished with everything he had.  But he never wanted to forget any of it – the nightmares had faded into memories and the old wounds had healed over into scars.

They had fought like hell to get here.

And when he held Kaidan close as they danced, he knew he had finally reached heaven.


End file.
